


on another broken avenue

by Lire_Casander



Series: in this broken beautiful mess [5]
Category: 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Childhood Trauma, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drugs, Emetophobia, Heavy Angst, Implied Exchange of Sexual Favors For Drugs, Implied Overdose, Implied Robbéry, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of Cancer, Mentions of drugs, Mentions of overdosing, Overdosing, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Self-Harm, Side Effects of ADHD Drugs, Trauma, Triggers, Vomiting, heed the warnings, implied theft, mentions of 9/11, mentions of ADHD, mentions of trauma, mentions of triggers, sex for drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27284329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: tk has always had trouble sleeping
Relationships: Carlos Reyes/TK Strand, TK Strand/Original Character(s), TK Strand/Original Male Character(s)
Series: in this broken beautiful mess [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1989202
Comments: 10
Kudos: 85





	on another broken avenue

**Author's Note:**

> beta’ed by [meloingly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meloingly/pseuds). any remaining mistakes are my own
> 
> special thanks to [trashpup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashpup/pseuds/trashpup) for their insight on several difficult scenes in this fic. without sy i wouldn’t have even thought of posting this. they have been a great support throughout writing the hardest parts of this story, and for that i am really grateful
> 
> title from _cross my heart_ by marianas trench
> 
> written for [tk strand week 2020](https://tkstrandweek.tumblr.com/post/623797377206255616/welcome-to-tk-strand-week-2020-please-join-us-in), **_day 5: “can i sleep here tonight?” + hurt/comfort + favorite rescue_**
> 
> written for **_insomnia_** from my [bad things happen bingo card](https://lire-casander.tumblr.com/post/626174763915722752/welcome-to-my-very-own-bad-things-happen-bingo)

**i. six**

The sirens haven't stopped for hours now. It seems to TK that they will never stop. They're scaring him to no end, but he doesn’t think he should say anything — it's bad enough that his mother thinks he hasnʼt seen her crying, perched over the kitchen island, after hanging up the phone. TK isn’t sure who she was talking to, because the words were muffled and his mother was whispering, but it has to be about something serious. 

His mother never cries. 

TK sits on the carpeted floor and grabs his favorite fire truck to play with. Since heʼs come home early from school — since his mother showed up at his second-period class with her hair undone and a freaked out expression on her features — he hasnʼt been able to do much. He tried to watch TV but his mother had snatched the remote from his little hands. 

The only time heʼd managed to sneak a peek has been when his mother had picked up the phone the first time, distracted by whatever she was hearing, and TK wishes he hadn’t turned the TV on. 

The towers that he can see whenever he visits his father at work were on fire. 

It had scared him so much that heʼd turned the TV off once again as quickly as he could, but not fast enough that his mother hadn't noticed. She had sat with him, explaining to him that his father was at work and today was one of the most important days for him. She’d tried to look unfazed, but there had been a tremble in her voice that TK had picked up on. 

“Is Daddy coming back home today?” he had asked, innocent and wide-eyed. 

“I don't know, sweetie,” his mother had replied, caressing his face with shaky fingers. “Now, why don't you go play while I make a few calls? No television this time.” 

“Yes, mom,” he had said, and now here he is, making noises with his mouth as he forces two of his toy cars to crash so he can play rescue with the other cars — a fire truck and a police cruiser. Even though he knows he wants to be a firefighter when he grows up, just like his father, he also likes police cars with their bars and their sirens. 

His mother only bothers him when itʼs time to have dinner, and she simply tells him that she’s made some sandwiches. TK doesn’t know what's exactly going on, but the noises around them haven't stopped, and heʼs scared. He eats his sandwich in silence, fire truck tucked underneath his arm so close to his skin that it could be fused to him.

“Time to go to bed, TK,” his mother announces when heʼs spent enough time pushing the rest of his dinner around his plate, unable to eat more than a few bites, always looking up at the door in the hopes that his father would cross the threshold. 

He never does, and TK feels like crying. 

He might not understand what has exactly transpired today, but he knows it's something horrible because his mother never cries, and she’s spent the whole day trying to hide the fact that her cheeks were tear-stuck. Also, his father has never failed to come back home after a shift — and heʼd promised TK that they would play together after school. 

“Heʼs not coming, is he?” TK questions in a soft voice. His mother picks up his plate and ruffles his hair in a halfhearted gesture. “He promised weʼd play together.”

“He needs to work,” his mother tells him. “You know sometimes he has to work overtime because saving lives is important, TK. He will come home,” she mutters, more to reassure herself than him. “He has to.” 

She tucks TK into his red and white sheets, and kisses his forehead before exiting the room, leaving the door ajar so a sliver of light from the corridor bathes the space heʼs used to call his. 

But he canʼt sleep. As much as he tries, as much as he reaches for his old teddy bear and brings it close to his chest, TK canʼt shake the feeling heʼs been having the whole day — a pain constricting his lungs and forcing his eyes to well up. He doesn’t know what will happen if his father doesn’t come home. It's the first time he has broken a promise heʼs made to TK, and he canʼt help but wonder. He knows his father's line of work is dangerous but also beautiful — heʼs visited the firehouse enough times already — but he has never, in his almost seven years, thought that one day his father wouldn’t make it home. 

The screams heʼs heard on the TV, coming from the tall towers his father had promised to take him to visit, haunt him. 

TK is out of his room, hanging onto his teddy bear, before he realizes it, his pajamas sweeping the floors as he drags himself to his parentsʼ room across the hall. He knows he's too old for this, but he needs his mother. He knocks on the door and opens it shyly. 

There’s a soft light coming from the side of the bed. He can see his mother reading a big book without drawings, glasses on and hair in a braid. She looks up immediately at the noise — he can tell she’s been crying, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. 

“Can I sleep here tonight?” he asks, fingers curling around his ragged teddy bear as he waits, leaning heavily against the door frame. 

His mother sighs from her spot propped against the bedhead, book in her hands and night lamp casting funny shadows on her face. “Are you having nightmares again?” she retaliates softly, dragging the duvet down and patting the bed beside her. “I can't sleep either,” she continues when he nods. 

TK rushes to the bed and jumps right in, hiding his face in his motherʼs side. He tries to clamp down his shivers but he's way too scared to even be successful. His mother tightens her grip on him, hand warm against TKʼs skin, and she whispers into his hair as she drops a kiss there, “Weʼll be fine, honey. I promise, whatever happens, we will be fine.” 

TK falls into a fitful sleep but he knows that, even during his worst nightmares, his dreams are being guarded by someone who loves him. 

**ii. twelve**

It’s not a rare occurrence that TK can’t sleep. He’s been having trouble focusing on tons of things lately, including school, basketball and sleeping. It’s not that he doesn’t want to — he simply finds it impossible to sit down for long periods of time to do one single thing. At school he can still ask for bathroom breaks when he feels himself getting too antsy to actually pay attention, but there’s a limit on how many times he can ask Ms. Abernathy to allow him to get out of the classroom without raising suspicions. 

Last night he didn't sleep a wink, and right now, when he’s so close to finishing classes and leaving for his father’s apartment, TK’s feeling the burden of insomnia even more than he usually does. It’s not the first time he’s tried functioning on the caffeine he can snatch whenever his mother turns around, and it’s definitely _not_ the first time he hasn’t slept in two days and a half. But today, for some reason, he’s finding it harder to focus when Ms. Abernathy drills on about how to calculate the area of a triangle. He just wants to get out.

He checks the clock on top of the blackboard every three minutes, his legs bouncing beneath the desk making his knees collide against the bottom of the table every so often that he knows he’s going to have bruises later on. He doesn’t mind — he can always blame it on basketball practice if he needs to. It wouldn’t be the first time; he’s got a few cuts over the course of the last weeks that he’s lied about when his mother has pointed them out. 

“Mr. Strand,” he hears his name and comes back from his thoughts to the classroom, where Ms. Abernathy is staring at him with one eyebrow arched up. There’s no bite in her words — she’s always been nice to him, the whole year through. “Thanks for coming back to our seemingly boring Algebra class. Could you answer the question on the blackboard?”

TK squints his eyes, the numbers on the surface dancing as he tries to understand what’s written there so he can answer the teacher. He should know what they’re talking about — his mother has already taught him some of the basics — but since he can’t really focus it’s difficult for him to get the answer through the thick fog in his mind. “I—”

“Are you feeling well, TK?” Ms. Abernathy asks, kinder this time, as she approaches him. “You look really tired. Have you slept well?”

TK shakes his head. The rest of the class is staring back at him, some students snickering under their breath. His best friend in the whole middle school, Taliah Greenberg, turns to her side to shoot him a reassuring smile. She’s the only one who knows what’s going on — that he can’t focus, that it’s difficult for him to find solace in sleeping, that he drinks way too much caffeine for a kid who’s supposed to not even drink Coke unsupervised. And even with so much coffee and Coke and every other caffeinated drink he can think of — every single thing the Internet says that should wake him up — TK still feels lagged and slow, as though the caffeine is doing the exact opposite to waking him up. It seems as though it _calms_ him, which is weird in and on itself if he’s going to listen to some virtual blogs, but he’s already used to being different, so he supposes that caffeine isn’t affecting him the way it’s meant to because his brain isn’t wired the _right_ way. 

He just doesn’t know what’s supposed to be right or wrong anymore.

Behind Taliah, Mark Smith hides his mouth with his hand and TK just knows he’s laughing, and it hurts. He thinks that what hurts is the rejection he feels whenever the others make fun of him, but when it comes from Mark, it’s almost unbearable.

TK doesn’t feel strong enough to actually reflect on what that feeling makes out of him.

“I could tell,” Ms. Abernathy says, her hand landing on top of his desk. “Are you feeling dizzy? Have you even eaten breakfast today, or lunch at the cafeteria, for that matter?” When he shakes his head to answer the last question — the first one gets answered on itself when he lifts his eyes to meet Ms. Abernathy’s and the whole classroom spins out of control. “You all know about the importance of eating proper meals throughout the day, right?” Ms. Abernathy asks the class, swirling around to make sure everyone heard her.

TK hangs his head low, suddenly ashamed of himself. 

He’s not enough, he’s never been enough, he’ll never be enough.

“Taliah,” Ms. Abernathy calls out, and his friend perks up upon hearing her name. “Please accompany TK to the infirmary. They should give you something for the dizziness.”

TK nods even though his brain is swimming inside his skull and it’s hard to make any movement. Taliah stands up and grabs his backpack, helping him up as well and walking him out of the classroom.

“How much coffee have you had today, Teek?” she asks once they’re both out of the room, out of Ms. Abernathy’s hearing. “You have to be careful!”

“I only had a couple of cups,” TK confesses. “Just when Mom turned around. She was talking on the phone, some big case coming up.”

“And then you skipped lunch to practice basket,” Taliah complains. 

“I _have_ to get out of school today in time!” TK cries out as they walk through the corridors. “Dad’s picking me up so we can go to the zoo. He promised.”

Taliah shakes her head. TK knows what she’s thinking, because he’s thought it himself — Owen Strand hasn’t kept a single promise he’s made to his son ever since he was six. “Teek, I think you should talk to your parents about this problem you’re having.”

“I don’t have any problem,” TK replies, stopping dead in his tracks. He huffs when Taliah tugs at his arm to keep him walking. “I don’t!”

“You _do_ ,” she insists. Taliah sighs when they reach the infirmary’s door. She knocks before turning back to him. “I don’t want to snitch on you. But this isn’t normal. You shouldn’t go on days without sleeping.”

“You won’t!”

“She won’t do what, Mr. Strand?” Nurse Lopes says, opening the door and surprising him. 

“No—nothing,” he stammers, but Taliah scoffs.

“He’s been having trouble sleeping,” Taliah rattles on him. TK shoots her a glare, but she doesn’t relent. “I’m worried about him.”

“I’ll take it from here,” Nurse Lopes tells them, discarding Taliah with a wave. When TK turns to her, she mouths _sorry_ before turning around and leaving him to the nurse’s questions.

She ends up calling his father — because of course at this posh school everyone knows his weekend schedules, alternating between his parents’ houses as though he is the ball in a tennis match — and he comes to pick TK up as soon as he can. 

Of course, their trip to the zoo is canceled in favor of an urgent appointment with a doctor recommended by Nurse Lopes, and his father has to endure a rather uncomfortable phone conversation with his mother on the way to the doctor’s office. Owen Strand sits stoically as the doctor asks questions and tells them that he needs to run some tests, but that TK’s probably suffering from some sort of hyperactivity disorder.

TK wants to crawl under a rock and disappear.

His father is silent the whole ride back to his Lower East Side apartment. TK doesn’t know what to think about it; Owen Strand never was a quiet man before the towers — TK remembers quite distinctly how they would howl with laughter, rolling on the floor after a tickling session. But after the towers, his father became a shadow of himself, and TK hasn’t been able to reach Owen.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters when his father pulls into the garage. He isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for, but he feels ashamed of himself.

“I hope you’re sorry for not trusting your mother or myself,” his father replies. He unbuckles his seatbelt but doesn’t open the driver’s door after he kills the engine. “You shouldn’t be sorry for struggling, TK. I just wish you’d told us before. We only want to help you.”

“Mom’s going to be furious.”

“She isn’t,” his father reassures him. “She just wants the best for you. Just like I do.”

TK nods. “Can we just, I don’t know, get inside? I’m exhausted.”

Owen chuckles. “It’s normal. You haven’t slept properly in a couple of days. First things first, you take a shower, eat some and go straight to bed. I will make sure there’s no coffee in the house.”

“Dad—” he starts to complain, but his father glares at him, so he shuts up. “Okay,” he acquiesces. “But—” he trails off, suddenly ashamed of what he wants to ask.

His father must notice his uncertainty, for he smiles warmly at him and nudges at his shoulder. “Yeah, son?”

“Can I sleep with you tonight?” he rushes out. “I—I sleep better if I’m not alone.”

His father seems taken aback for a moment, but he nods. “Let’s get inside,” he finally says, opening the driver’s door. “I’ll order some pizza and then we can call dibs on the bed’s sides.”

TK smiles his first real smile in a long time, and exits the car. Maybe an evening with his father at home is even better than a trip to the zoo.

**iii. fifteen**

It’s five twenty-six on a Saturday, and TK is wide awake. 

_Every_ part of him is wide awake.

He knows it’s normal, being a teenager and all, but even he understands that being horny at all times can’t be as healthy and cool as everyone makes it out to be. And it’s not when he thinks of the female models featured in the magazines his friends from basketball share with him — it happens when he thinks about his _male_ friends from the team. So, despite being completely uncalled for, his physical reactions are at least selective.

He’s already tried closing his eyes and counting sheep. He’s tried doing some push-ups to tire himself. He’s tried thinking about sad things like abandoned kittens on the streets, but his boner just won’t be tamed. So he does the only thing he can think of, before he drives himself crazy — his hand dives south and he grabs himself beneath the sweatpants he wears to sleep. He moves his fingers, tightening and applying pressure in all the right spots as he thinks of the person who’s currently filling his fantasies, even if he doesn’t know what it means now. Or maybe he does, and he’s too scared to admit it.

He bites down on his lower lip to avoid moaning _that_ name before he spasms, not too long after starting his ministrations, and everything’s over. TK turns his head and spots the box of tissues close to his bed, and with a defeated sigh he reaches out and snatches one, wiping himself as thoroughly as he can. He lets his head fall back onto the pillow as he reflects on what this all means, now.

His prescription meds aren’t working anymore — or they’re working _against_ him. He can tell from the way the world around him spins and turns — fast, fast, _faster_ — whenever the effects of the Adderall wear off, which is a lot sooner than before. He’s been following different treatments for his ADHD the past three years, his doctors never quite agreeing on any pill that can work on him long enough for them to see results. He’s been taking Adderall for a couple of years now, after the Ritalin didn’t work and he developed an allergic reaction to Vyvanse that took him straight to the hospital. And for at least the past nine weeks, TK has been feeling like the medicines don’t work on him any longer, but he can’t tell his parents — they’re already spending way too much money on him as it is, and he doesn’t want to risk starting yet another war between them. Not after he spilled the news that his father was getting married again to his mother, and all hell broke loose.

He loves how Adderall makes the world burst with colors, but that happens so scarcely these days that he can’t even remember how everything’s supposed to be. He’s been taking more and more each day just to get through the motions of being alive, just to chase that high he feels whenever the meds kick into his system — seeking that world of blooming colors that surround him with the ease of an old familiar feeling spreading warmth through his body. He checks the blister on his nightstand only to find out that it’s empty. It was supposed to last him at least another month.

The colors dissolve when he sits up on the bed.

Everything’s gray once again. It’s not that he doesn’t like colors — it’s that he can’t seem to _find_ them anywhere. Maybe it’s the fact that he hasn’t been sleeping properly for so long that he can’t even remember the last time he actually slept through the night. Maybe it’s the fact that he doesn’t really _want_ to sleep. He always has these vivid dreams that he doesn’t want to talk about, and they’re driving him even crazier than his awakened state does — and that’s to say something, because he’s running out of ways to hide his erections, and there’s just so many sweatpants he can wear without drawing any more attention to his groin, and they seem to last _eons_. None of his friends has ever talked about everlasting boners, and TK isn’t the one to actually bring it up — he knows that it’s not normal, not even for a horny teenager like he and his friends are. He still doesn’t know what’s wrong with him — it’s not even his ADHD, at least not _just_ his disorder.

Whatever it is, he doesn’t feel an ounce like the wonder kid his parents have always told him he was.

He wipes at the tears already spilling from his eyes, but it’s to no avail. Stumbling, he makes his way to the shower without running into his mother and he locks the door at his back. He tosses the t-shirt he wears to bed and steps into the shower. When the water starts running, he finally allows himself to _feel_. As much as he wants to punch the already slippery wall, TK simply scratches the tiles and hopes that his whimpers aren’t loud enough for his mother to notice them.

“TK?” he hears his mother calling his name over the shower. “Breakfast’s ready!”

He doesn’t reply. He needs his meds, but there's nothing he can do now that heʼs run out of them. He canʼt get out of the bathroom and tell his mother — heʼd have to confess that heʼs been taking twice the dosage, or even more some days. His mother would tell his father and they both would gang up on him. These days his parents don't seem to find any common ground except when it comes to him, and TK doesn’t want to fuel that. 

As he shakes his head underneath the spray, an idea sparks in his mind. He might have found the perfect way to get more Adderall, but he's going to need an excuse to be out of his home and to bribe the only person who can grant him access to the drugs. 

When he meets his mother at the kitchen, there's a halfway planned plot growing in his mind. 

“Mom, can I spend the night at Peteʼs?” he asks innocently. He grabs a granola bar from a bowl and even sits properly on a stool, just like his motherʼs always telling him to. “Pete, from basket,” he adds while he munches. “This weekend weʼre trying some bonding, watching videos and learning to trust each other. Everyone will be there.” 

His mother purses her lips. “Why is it the first time I am hearing of this?” she questions. 

“Itʼs been some sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing,” he invents. “Everyone will be there.” 

Gwenyth feigns considering it before openly allowing him to. She tells him to call and reassures him that he can come back home if he's feeling uncomfortable. TK nods absently. The first part of his plan has gone smoothly. 

Now he only has to convince Pete, whose parents own a pharmacy and keep some of the medicines in a cabinet at home — Pete himself has bragged about the access he has to certain drugs — to actually sell him some of the pills he needs to function. 

TK will do anything to get a hold of them, even if it means giving something he hasnʼt thought heʼd give away in exchange for a colorful world. 

**iv. eighteen**

TK Strand has two secrets. He thinks of them as he walks to Ground Zero on the twelfth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in the countryʼs history, searching for his father to greet him from afar. This year, TK isn’t here as part of the first respondersʼ families but as one first responder in the making himself. 

He started the Fire Academy right out of high school because that's what he thought he should do. It was one of the numerous reasons why heʼs argued with his mother so much — she wanted him to rethink his decision to forego college altogether; she believed that he could go to the Academy later on, after he would have gotten his degree, but TK hadn't wanted to become the oldie starting the Academy at twenty-one or twenty-three. Plus, he had known that studying wasn't for him — his senior year his grades had tanked, and heʼd been lucky he got to graduate in the first place. His secrets had been a heavy load on his shoulders, keeping him from focusing long enough to even attend some of his most important classes. 

TK finds his spot in the space left for the probies, a metallic chair with his name taped on it, in between Sorensen and Swollington. He greets his peers before sitting down, locating the water bottle that everyone has got in front of their seats. He will need it sooner than later — once the effects of the pill heʼs taken earlier wear off, TK will need to chase the high once again in order to be functional, and he hates dry swallowing his drugs. It always leaves him with a sore throat. 

Thatʼs his first secret, he muses. Heʼs been relying on drugs to keep a functional face up to anyone who would ask, including his parents. Nobody has ever suspected that the Strand poster boy — the kid called to become the next New York hero — needs a high to get through most daily motions in his life. The first thing he does every morning is checking his stash, hidden inside one of the boring textbooks he knows his mother will never look into — he brings that book in his backpack when he stays with his father. There’s no way heʼs ever going to let it get out of his sight. Then, after heʼs reassured himself that everything is in order, he goes shower and pops a pill before having breakfast. He canʼt focus otherwise, and it's not like heʼs addicted — he can stop whenever he wants. 

There are several more moments throughout the day when he needs his pills, but he manages to keep them at a minimum when heʼs at the Academy — after becoming the horniest teenager in high school due to the Adderallʼs side effects, he tries not to take too many of those pills while heʼs around people who wouldn’t understand — heʼs going to be taken off Adderall anyway, if his doctor gets his way. He doesn’t know how heʼs going to pull through his days if his doctor decides there are different ways for him to fight his ADHD that aren't relying on chemicals. Fortunately, he’s still friends with Peter, from his school basketball team, and they usually meet every day at Peterʼs basement to exchange their daily stories and to get high together. TK might have to resort to weed until he finds a fix that works for him — until now heʼs been taking whatever Peter says that enhances the Adderallʼs effects, so it will take him some time to adjust. Although he likes the shit Peter last gave him — oxycodone, heʼd said — and TK believes that it might be helpful for his anxiety. It calms him down easily and he feels like the king of the world whenever he swallows it. 

He isn’t going to give up on something that makes him feel so good, at least not without a fight. 

He watches as Andy McRory finds his seat on the row before TKʼs, and he feels his insides turning upside down. This is his second secret, and it's at least as dangerous as the first one. No one can ever know about his tendencies, not even his parents — _especially_ his parents. TK doesn’t know what could happen if anyone from his social circles but he isn’t keen on finding out. He could be kicked out of the Academy, and then he wouldn't know what to do with his life. 

Andy McRory keeps distracting TK throughout the event. He tries focusing on his father, out front with a grim rictus on his face as the names of the first responders fallen are being read aloud. TK recognizes all of the names belonging to his father's first firehouse — the one that was blown under the explosions. He used to play with their kids, he used to jump down that pole and hear his fatherʼs mates cheering on him. He recognizes all of those names because they are carved in the corners of his soul.

TK focuses his gaze on Andyʼs neck, on the way that strip of skin makes him feel — he wants to lick and nibble, but he knows he canʼt. He doesn’t even know if Andy is—if he is exactly the same as TK is. 

“Son,” he hears at his right. When he looks up, he sees his father standing next to him. Unbeknownst to him, the celebrations are over and everyone is slowly trickling out of the place. “Let's go have lunch,” he offers. 

TK remembers then that heʼs supposed to be spending the day with his father. He shakes his head. “Sorry, I got caught up on this,” he gestures toward the general direction of the monolith with the names on it. “Let's go.” 

He follows his father while he makes a mental list of things he has to take care of after this lunch, and one of those things sends a dreaded weight on his stomach. 

TK needs to pay his debt to Peter today. Theyʼve been fooling around, and Peter trusts him to get the money, but this isn't just a friendship — it's always been a transaction and TK has been lacking on his side of the hustle. In his defense, heʼs seen his allowance drastically cut after entering the Academy, and he isn’t making much money right now. He’s even rummaged through his motherʼs purse and snatched a few bills, but after counting them it still isn’t enough. Peter has had enough patience, but he's told TK that he needs to clear his tab or else he wonʼt be providing any more drugs. 

He needs money. 

“Dad,” TK starts once they're sitting at their table, in the same restaurant as always, facing the spot where the towers had been. “I need to ask you for a favor.” 

His father arches an eyebrow. “I can't help you get through the Academy faster than the rest, TK. You know that.” 

“Itʼs not that,” he sighs. “I just—this is embarrassing.” 

“You can tell me anything,” his father encourages him, the menu already forgotten on the table. They know what they're having anyway. 

“I need money,” TK goes for the fall, eyes cast down. “Momʼs cut my allowance down because I joined the Academy.” 

“How much?” 

TK knows he canʼt ask his father for the three hundred he owes Peter, but he still manages to scrape a few dollars without his father questioning what he needs them for. The rest of the lunch goes smoothly, even if TK is a bit distracted with thoughts on how heʼs going to find the rest of the money. 

He bids his farewell to his father later, and he can feel his heart sinking all the way to Peterʼs house. He reaches the building too soon for his liking, his fears rising in his throat while he makes up excuses in his mind for his lack of payment back for Peter. 

“TK,” Peterʼs mother calls out when she sees him standing outside. “Come on in, Peter is waiting for you! Will you stay for dinner?” 

He canʼt bail out after that, so he follows her inside and climbs down the steps to the basement where Peter has set up his small empire of chasing dreams with chemicals. TK can feel his palms sweating, and he isn’t sure whether it is because the effects of the pills heʼs taken before the ceremony are wearing off or because he's nervous as all fuck. 

Peter side-eyes him when he sets foot in the basement. 

“About time, Strand,” he says. TK can tell almost immediately that heʼs high. “Bringing back my money?” 

TK shakes his head but doesn’t speak. His words are stuck in his throat. 

“I won't be giving you anything else until you pay me, Strand,” Peter slurs. 

“I—I have part of it,” TK scrambles to take the rumpled bills out of his pockets with trembling hands. Once he's seen Peter, heʼs felt the need to get high as well — but without all the money there’s no way Peter will give him another pill, and TK _needs_ the shit he got his hands on the last time. 

“I need _all_ of it,” Peter insists. “But maybe we can reach an agreement,” he continues, propping himself on an elbow as he grabs the money with one hand — discarding it without counting the bills — and hooks his fingers into the loops of the jeans TK is wearing. 

“What—what do you mean,” TK stammers. He doesn’t fight the pull when it comes, instead stumbling into Peterʼs space, right in between his thighs. 

“Iʼve seen the way you look at me,” Peter says coyly. “I know your secret, Strand. Wanna some more oxy? Work for it, since it's obvious you can't pay for it.” 

TK is at a loss for words at first, his eyes wandering around the place. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and he isn’t sure he wants this. But he needs the pills, and it's evident what he has to do. 

He sinks to his knees, insecure fingers opening the fly of his jeans, and licks his lips once, twice, three times, but the nerves don't go away. Peter grabs his head and pushes TK into his groin forcefully. 

There’s no way back after that. 

TK would have never expected his first time to be in exchange for something he needs to function, but it isn’t as though he was saving himself for someone special. 

“Can I crash here tonight?” he says afterward, wiping his mouth with his hand, starting to stand up. 

“Do you think you’ve paid _enough_ for all the oxy you’ve got off me?” Peter says aggressively. “Really, Strand? I still haven’t had my complete way with you.”

TK shivers but he doesn’t say anything in reply. He only knows that he needs that poison in his system, and right now he’s so far gone that he would do anything to get it. He leans in, hands sloppily grabbing at Peter’s shoulders, before whispering, “I’ll do anything you ask me to, Pete.”

Peter hums in approval before manhandling him back into the couch and making TK pay some more for his oxy. 

It becomes his pick-up line after that — after he cuts ties with Peter, unable to look at himself in the mirror but needing the drugs in his bloodstream. He hits the streets, searching for unsuspecting victims, flirting with them in dark clubs and darker alleys, offering to go to their places and doing what he does best — going down, going up, licking his lips and stretching himself — before they fall asleep and TK, completely hyped up on the need to get high, goes through their things and steals every single piece of value they have. Then, he flitters away in the night, followed by his guilt and his sins, to find another corner, another dealer who could fill the void in his soul. 

TK makes himself believe that he's not good for anything that isn’t saving lives and selling himself for some pills, until one day it's all too much. One day it comes to a point where he doesn’t know where the drugs end and his soul begins, and everything turns to grey once again before becoming black. 

His father's face is the first thing he sees when he wakes up in the hospital with his stomach pumped and his limbs shaking, unable to hide from the pain and the disappointment in Owen Strandʼs eyes. 

Thatʼs all TK is ever going to be to his father, and it's a truth he needs to get used to, for it's shaping his views on his own existence. 

**v. twenty-six**

TK knows that trying to sleep will be to no avail in his current state. Even as he lies on his bed, restless and worried, his mind races back to the moment when he’s discovered the bottle of pills — to the Google search that followed and the dawning realization that his life had changed without him even noticing.

His father has cancer — he’s had cancer for a long time, and he’s known way before they left New York City for a different landscape. Way before they changed the city skyline for a hype town among vast extensions of green lands, Owen Strand knew he was dying. His own father had been lying to him, and he’s had the nerve — the _nerve_ — of accusing TK of doing the same.

As if TK hadn’t had enough reasons to be angry at the world. As if TK hadn’t had enough earth-shattering realizations to last him a lifetime. As if to add insult to injury, his own existence is being tilted off the edge of nothingness once again by fate, and this time he can’t do anything to fight it back.

Sure, he can support his father. Sure, he can go with him to his chemo sessions, and he can pester the doctors — he can become his mother and put to good use all those lawyer tricks she taught him. But he can’t stop the cancer from expanding — he can just hope the medicines work on his father. He can just pray.

He doesn’t think any God would want to hear him, with all the sins he’s committed, and all the atonement he still feels he needs to do.

He tosses and turns, the sheets tangling around his feet in a vicious grip that threatens to suffocate him. The minutes tick by painstakingly slow, his mind overflowing with images of a future where his father won’t be around to catch him every time he falls — and given his tendency to stumble upon the same obstacle over and over and _over_ again, TK is already missing the soft cushion his father has always been, even in the darkest times when TK believed no one ever loved him.

When not even TK had loved himself, his father had been there, in the shadows, making up for a childhood spent in other kids’ houses comforting those who had lost more than they had bargained for.

TK isn’t sure what to feel anymore. He needs to be strong because right now his father doesn’t need his weakness, but his heart seems fragmented in a myriad of crystal pieces that someone has stepped upon. The edges of the broken pieces are piercing his soul, and the bleeding is choking him to an extent where he can’t even inhale without feeling a sharp pain in his chest.

He can recognize a panic attack — he’s had enough throughout his life to read the symptoms for what they are — and he also knows what he has to do. He tries for the simplest way to fight it, and searches his darkened room for five things he can see and four things he can touch and three things he can hear, but he doesn’t make it to the two things he can smell or the one thing he can taste because he freaks out way before he reaches that point.

TK sits up on the bed, his father’s face when he’d realized that TK _knew_ a painting on his mind as he relives through everything that has happened — the lies, the crisis, the strange and sudden exhaustion, the way Judd hovered over his father — and he feels bile rising in his throat. He barely makes it to the bathroom before he empties his stomach into the toilet. He retches, trembling as he leans in further and further, his head almost entirely engulfed by the porcelain. 

When he lifts up his head, the whole bathroom spins. He’s running out of air. He needs to step out, even just for a little bit, so he can clear his head and come back to sleep. TK knows he’s fooling himself — the fragile mirage of a life where he can get some rest, a simple break from the worst of life, has been blasted by an army of bad news. He won’t be able to sleep anyway.

He opens the door slowly, trying to stop it from creaking at the hinges so he doesn’t wake his father up. TK isn’t sure how his father is able to sleep through the night with all the lies and the uncertain future looming over him, but when he’s passed the closed door to the bedroom he’s heard his father’s snoring. It’s evident Owen Strand is made of sterner stuff than his son. He tentatively tiptoes outside the house, closing the door as softly as he can and stepping away until he finds himself on the driveway.

He’s running before he realizes what he’s doing.

At first it seems like he’s wandering aimlessly, but he soon finds himself climbing up the stairs to a building he knows all too well, two steps at a time. He’s lost track of time, although objectively he’s aware that it must have been at least forty-five minutes — which is the average time it should take him to reach Carlos’ apartment by foot. Not that he’s been keeping track or anything. He most definitely hasn’t.

He just happens to check his phone from time to time and run random routes on his Google Maps app to learn about distances in this new town.

He’s sweating profusely when he stops himself short of slamming into the door. Without checking the time — without even second-guessing his actions — TK lifts one hand and rings the bell. And because this is his life, and it could always get worse, it starts pouring cats and dogs right the moment his knuckles follow the sound of the bell and knock on the door.

Of _fucking_ course.

By the time he hears movement inside the house, he’s soaking. He can feel the longest locks of his hair sticking to his ears, and there’s no way to discern where the rain ends and his tears begin. When the door is barely ajar, he’s already speaking, spitfiring the words as though it’s the end of the world.

It feels like the end of _his_ world, anyway.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” he asks.

Carlos meets his gaze with a worried light in his sleep-clouded eyes, and a frown. “What the actual—” he begins, biting back a yawn. “TK?”

“I’m sorry,” TK says, shifting his weight from one dripping leg to the other. “I know it’s late but I just couldn’t—I can’t—”

“Get inside,” Carlos offers, opening the door completely. “It’s pouring out there. You’re going to catch a cold.” 

TK follows him inside, the familiar walls he’s been slammed into — the exact spot where he started devouring Carlos before it all went down the drain spectacularly — greeting him among the shadows cast by the lamplights gliding through the blinds. As TK watches Carlos motioning for him to stay put in the living room as he disappears into the bathroom, he realizes that he doesn’t have a plan here. He doesn’t know what heʼs come here for — he knows whatʼs triggered him to run but he isn’t sure what he wants out of this interaction with Carlos. 

Theyʼre more than friends but less than boyfriends, way over friends with benefits but not yet a couple. 

TK is at a loss about what could come out of him pounding into Carlosʼ door at whatever hellish time. 

He begins to shiver, despite his attempts to mask his teeth clattering together. TK looks around, nervous all of a sudden, and when Carlos comes back with a towel in his hand, he finds TK trembling like a leaf. 

“Here,” he offers, unfolding the carefully wrapped towel and covering TK with it. “You shouldn’t keep those clothes on,” he suggests.

It's like TKʼs been slapped. 

Every interaction he’s ever had at any given time in the wee hours of the night has always ended up the same way. He should have expected Carlos to react the same way as everyone else — TK is just a ragged doll for their use, and while before he got something out of it, something hideous that helped him escape, with Carlos he will come out empty-handed. 

He recoils, hurt and ashamed. The towel drops to the floor but he doesn’t pay it much attention, frantic as he is in his quest for the door. He shouldn’t have come here. He knew he would be a bother. He knew he wasn't good enough to be held through his pain. 

He isn’t worth of love unless it's disguised behind the dirty face of sex. 

Carlos seems to catch up pretty quickly on his feelings, though, for he reaches out and grabs TK by the wrist before he can bolt away. He doesn’t control his own force, TK realizes with a jolt when heʼs pulled back into Carlosʼ gravitational field, colliding against Carlosʼ chest with a loud and undignified _oooof_. 

“Easy there,” Carlos mutters, one hand carding through TKʼs hair while the other sneaks around his waist to keep him upright. “You’re soaked, TK. Why don't you let me bring a change of clothes?” 

But TK has found a space between Carlosʼ neck and his waist, a spot where he can rest his head and listen to a strong heartbeat that lulls him, calming his nerves. He clutches Carlosʼ shirt — rumpled from sleep and wrinkled in the places where Carlos himself has balled his fist into it, a habit TK shouldn’t be aware of — and keeps him in place. “Don't leave,” he mumbles. 

“You’re going to catch a fever at this rate, TK,” Carlos tries to reason with him, but TK whines when Carlos moves an inch away from him. “Okay, fine, weʼll stay here.” 

He’s still massaging TKʼs scalp with deft fingers as they slide down to the floor, and heʼs still pointedly not asking the questions TK knows that Carlos has on the tip of his tongue. They remain a heap of flesh and bones, Carlosʼ floor wet with a pool of the water dripping off TK, when TK hears a soft humming above the pumping of blood rushing straight into his ear. 

“Better?” Carlos whispers from somewhere at the other side of the heartbeat. TK nods faintly, all the stress and the tension fading off as Carlos keeps going on with his ministrations. 

He doesn’t register the moment he falls asleep, easily for the first time in so long he canʼt even remember, and he doesn’t feel Carlos picking him up and bringing him to the bed. 

He’s bathing in sunlight and warmth when he wakes up the next morning, on Carlosʼ bed and wearing Carlosʼ old college sweatshirt. TK doesn’t remember how heʼs gotten from soaking wet to warm dry, but his best guess is that Carlos has managed to manhandle him after he fell asleep, so he didn’t end up with pneumonia. TK stretches on the bed before standing up and chasing the smell of coffee and pancakes coming from the kitchen. There’s a dish with toast and some strawberries in the middle of the kitchen island when TK sets foot there, watching as Carlos picks up a spatula from the first drawer, where TK has seen him put it countless times. TK feels like heʼs in a movie heʼs watched for a long time, and he still wants to watch it all once again. He shouldn’t know where everything is — he shouldn’t be so comfortable here — but he takes one seat on a stool and silently nibbles on some toast while Carlos puts breakfast together. He only looks up when Carlos places a plate in front of him, full of pancakes and raspberries, and feels the familiar weight of the officerʼs presence in the stool next to him. He wishes he could talk, but his voice is caught in his throat, and he thinks he wouldn't know how to voice all his fears and doubts. Carlos doesn’t ask, but he doesn’t leave TKʼs side either. At some point, Carlosʼ left hand ends up on top of TKʼs right hand, and he squeezes it softly. 

It makes TK have hope, somehow. 

**+1.thirty-two**

The storm brewing over them has kept TK from sleeping. It’s always been like that, with some exceptions throughout the years — whenever heʼs too exhausted to even care about the sky falling down on them, he usually ends up catching a fitful sleep, but that's not a common occurrence. He sighs when yet another thunder echoes through the house. 

There’s no way heʼs getting sleep anytime soon. 

TK props himself up on the bed without making any more fuss than needed before he turns on the lamp on his nightstand. There’s a soft snoring at his right that sends him snickering — when he turns, he sees Carlos on his stomach, his face toward TK, one hand clutching TKʼs waist. He smiles softly at the image; TK had mastered the art of not disturbing his husband during his sleepless night, a skill heʼs worked on for the six years they have been together. 

There’s a book on his nightstand that's been sitting there for weeks now. TK has been too tired to keep on reading after his long shifts this month — Paul breaking a leg three days after Marjan and Mateo left for their honeymoon has thrown their schedules off for the month, and heʼs got to call in more back-to-back twenty-four shifts than expected. Coming back home at odd hours, to find the house eerily silent and Carlos already down for the night has been irking TK, more so when Carlos is already gone in the morning, their shifts never lining up to allow them more than a few pecks when they think no oneʼs looking if their crews happen to be onsite at the same time. 

It doesn’t bode well for a family dynamic, but TK knows it's not permanent. 

He picks up the book and opens it at the mark, reading the first few lines on the page when heʼs startled by a knock on the door. He almost misses it, synced with another thunder and encompassed by lightning, but surely the knock is there — soft enough not to wake Carlos up but loud enough to catch TKʼs attention. 

“Come in,” he says, placing the book back where he’s picked it up. He has an inkling he wonʼt be reading tonight either. 

The door opens an inch, and a mop of black curls show on the threshold followed by a beaten-up teddy bear that hides what TK knows is a tearful face. Their three-year-old son is anything but predictable in his fear of storms. “Daddy?” 

TK smiles. “Wanna come in, buddy?” he says. The door creaks open and there’s a blur of movement following it falling closed again. The bed dips with the extra weight, and he chuckles. “Easy, baby, we don't want to wake your Papa up, now do we?” 

“No,” comes the reply. 

TK helps him up on the bed and ruffles his hair. Heʼs always marveled at the fact that Mickey looks so much like Carlos — same hair, same eyes, same sun-touched skin — and yet heʼs so similar to TK that their souls are almost carbon-copy. They both like pancakes with raspberries and dislike caramel syrup on them. They both enjoy catching fireflies in the chill autumn night and love teasing Carlos whenever he doesn’t manage to catch a single one. 

Theyʼre both afraid of storms as well. 

“What do you say, you stay here tonight?” he offers, scooping his son closer to his chest so that he can calm down with TKʼs heartbeat — another trait they share. If Mickey wasn't Carlosʼ reflection TK would wonder whether the kid is genetically a Strand. 

Mickey nods against TKʼs chest. 

“Can I sleep here tonight too?” says a different voice from the door, startling both TK and Mickey. When he looks up, he sees Freya shifting her weight from one leg to the other, looking all shades of unsure, a feeling that TK thought had already been forgotten after living with them for ten months. 

Sometimes he forgets that Freya isn’t theirs — that the blonde locks aren't a trait of their family, that the sad blue eyes haven't run in their DNA for generations. TK knows that the best decision they could have made, back during the first weeks of their engagement, had been choosing to become foster parents to astray kids. 

It hadn't been easy, at first. With them being a same-sex couple in a rather conservative state, and then with both of them being first responders with crazy schedules, it had taken them _years_ to even enter the lists. In fact, Mickey had come sooner than Freya, but neither of them had given up. TK would feel hope wearing off, or Carlos would want to raid the Social Services headquarters, but they would soothe each other down somehow. That's what they are to each other — a rock to lean on, a soft touch to rely on, a promise of forever through good or bad.

TK had survived worse, but this time he wasn't alone. He hadn’t been, ever since the night he showed up at Carlosʼ door with so much pain and so little love to give. Carlos had been there for him, and he kept making good on his words from that night even when TK believed he didn’t deserve so much love. 

Freya had been a surprise, but also like a déjà-vu. When they had received the call about a girl — fifteen, bounced around the system, both her parents dead from overdosing when she was ten, not attractive for adopting parents because of her age — TK had felt like it was a gift from a God he had stopped believing in. They had met her that same night, because Freya had been kicked out of her latest foster home due to some behavioral problems no one wanted to take care of. 

They had found out — much, _much_ later — that _behavioral problems_ was code for abusive households that somehow slipped through the cracks of a rigged system. 

TK had seen himself reflected in those sad eyes that very same night, and he vowed to never let her go through so much pain ever again. 

“Are you afraid of storms as well, Freya?” he asks, patting a patch of the mattress next to him. “Cʼmere,” he coos when she nods, trembling at the thunder roaring above them. Freya moves quickly but pauses short of jumping on the bed, hesitating. “Don't worry,” he reassures her. “Carlos won't wake up.”

As if on cue, when Freya sits on the bed and it dips, Carlos stirs and mumbles in his sleep, causing the teenager to freeze and Mickey to snicker. TK checks the clock on his husbandʼs nightstand, only to realize that it's still early enough. He smiles.

“Let's get you both comfy,” he tells them. It’s difficult for him to maneuver with Carlosʼ hand still on his waist, but he tries anyway. 

“You’re going to wake him up,” Freya points out. 

Before TK can reassure her that it's not happening, Carlos groans and opens his eyes. TK can't help the blooming warmth spreading through his body at the sight of his husband — bed head, clouded eyes, skin wrinkled where he’s slept on his face — waking up beside him. There was a time when he didn’t think heʼd ever see another sunrise, let alone have his heartʼs desires handed to him on a silver platter. 

“Qué—” Carlos mumbles. He always resorts to Spanish when he wakes up, disoriented and still half asleep. “Oh, Freya, Mickey,” he greets with a soft smile as he rubs his eyes with one hand, the other reaching out and landing on Freyaʼs arm. “Stormy night? 

The kids nod solemnly. TK sees how Freya tenses up before relaxing under Carlosʼ touch. They had been told that she had serious trouble with unwelcome touching, and his heart had broken for her — he knows what it's like to have so deep a trauma than the very thought of being touched set him off in the beginning, right after his first overdose. They had been told that Freya would be a handful, that she was trouble, that they were expected to be unable to control her. 

TK had known all along that all she needed was a shelter, very much like he had when he first met Carlos. TK had wanted to become that safe haven for Freya, and even though the beginning had been rocky he thinks that now they're getting somewhere — he still remembers his frustration when she wouldn’t listen to him, Carlosʼ words soothing him. 

_She just needs time_ , Carlos had said. _She’s just like you. She’s been dealt a horrible hand at this poker game we call life, but we will help her get back on her feet. That's why we did this, right? So we could help children not to make our same mistakes_.

TK had nodded, still hurt that Freya hadn't trusted him enough to talk to him, but he's learned ever since. They both have learned to pick up their battles when it comes to parenting. 

Freya not flinching when Carlos caresses her arm in a soothing way feels like a huge victory tonight. 

They have been talking about expanding the family, making it official. They have been talking about going back to Social Services and asking for adoption papers for Freya, so she can become a Strand-Reyes just like Mickey. They have been wanting to tell her about their plans for so long but they have never found the perfect moment. 

Which is why heʼs surprised when Carlos blurts out, “I love these little family reunions. Even if our children wake me up.” 

His eyes widen at his words when they sink in. They have been avoiding talking about Freya as their daughter out of respect for her feelings — she had known her parents, and despite them being some drug addicts who set the house on fire by accident, she had loved them. Neither Carlos nor TK had wanted to take that from her or spook her. They loved Freya. 

“What do you mean, your children? Plural?” she hesitantly questions, raising her head from where she’s laid it on top of TKʼs chest. 

“We wanted to sit down and talk to you about it,” TK explains, shouting Carlos a dirty look over the kidsʼ heads. Mickey is already fast asleep, storm be damned. “We, uh, we would love it if you wanted to be, ehm, part of our family. Not that you aren't already,” he rushes to say. “But officially.” 

“Like adoption papers official?” Freya asks. TK can't see her face as she talks, but he feels the reverberation of her words against his heart. 

“Yeah,” Carlos replies. He shoots TK an apologetic smile that gets rewarded with a soft grin of his own. “What do you think? It's okay if you need time. No pressure.”

Freya accommodates herself on top of TK once again, sagging with relief when TKʼs arm sneaks back around her. She racks her fingers through Mickeyʼs curls before saying, “I think I would like that.”

TK lets out the breath he has been holding and drops a kiss on Freyaʼs head. She hums softly, her eyes already closed, lulled by heartbeat and love into slumber. TK leans into Carlos, his husbandʼs hand back on his waist, and he closes his eyes against Carlosʼ chest. 

He has everything he needs right here, in the beating of the hearts that are his to cherish.

**Author's Note:**

> (not so much) fun facts about writing this fic!
> 
> * people diagnosed with adhd can become addicted according to [american addiction centers ](https://americanaddictioncenters.org/adhd-and-addiction)
> 
> * the _favorite rescue_ part of this story should have been about how tk enters some burning building and saves a whole family. instead, it’s about how tk saves himself even though there was a time when he believed there was nothing worth saving. i hope i have done it justice somehow.


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